160 Calamities of Carving. [FEB. 



night, and certainly the bespattered diocesan was the first image that 

 occurred to me the following morning. It was plain my prospects in 

 that quarter were utterly ruined, and as I lay in bed I revolved and 

 re-revolved, with the advantage of a parched tongue and fevered brain, 

 the means of ridding myself at once from all the disquietude which I 

 felt must ever be my lot whilst carving was in fashion. If I looked back 

 I saw nothing but suffering, acute suffering if forward, I perceived 

 one interminable vista of similar discomforts. It was clear, that to 

 avoid the dissection of dishes, which despite of my efforts to escape 

 were often placed under my distribution, I had feigned sprained wrists, 

 cut fingers, and sudden indisposition, until they could be feigned no more. 

 Something therefore was immediately necessary to be decided upon to 

 relieve me from the burden of such an existence as I was enduring. 

 Mine was no common calamity a marriage, a bankruptcy, a duel, may 

 occur in the course of a man's life-time ; but carving is of diurnal oc- 

 currenceno man is safe for four-and-tw^ity hours no sooner is one 

 dinner dispatched, than in some way or other, another must be in pre- 

 paration ; and who can endure an everlasting conflict with antipathies ? 

 I resolved therefore to quit England, once and for ever a country 

 where the very poor are the only very happy people for they have no 

 dinners. 



Arriving at this determination, I wavered for a fime between China 

 and France. The Chinese, I had heard (like sensible people), always 

 eat alone ; but I knew less of their general habits. France occurred to 

 me as the land of ragouts, hashes and fricasees; of course, little or no 

 work for the knife, and much for the spoon. I determined therefore 

 for France. I rose with alacrity, dispatched my affairs, collected my 

 moveables, and made all ready for a start. 



Fortune, however, could not be satisfied without a parting blow at 

 me, even when I had consented to succumb to her dictates and expa- 

 triate myself. During a ride which I took to bid farewell to my few 

 remaining relatives, I was approaching, about fifteen miles from my 

 house, an inn which I had been in the habit of stopping at, when a 

 fellow belonging to it called to his companion, and exclaimed, in a sub- 

 dued tone which he thought could not reach my ear " I say, Tom, here 

 comes Chops" I looked round, but perceiving no one, dismounted and 

 entered the house. Presently after, having ordered some refreshment, I 

 heard one of the waiters in the passage ask another, if a party who had 

 just arrived were to dine in the Unicorn. " No, no,'* said he, " they 

 can't dine there, Chops is in that room." Assured, as I was the only 

 tenant of it, that they must have some reference to me, I rang the bell, 

 and when the waiter entered, insisted upon an explanation. After 

 much prevarication, and a promise on my part of entire forgiveness 

 whatever it might be, he said, " Why, all the servants calls you so, Sir, 

 because you never orders nothing but chops." 



It was too true ; my anti-carving faculties had doomed me to a mo- 

 notony of mutton to perpetual dinners upon chops. 



Now, fortune, I defy thee I am'on board the packet the wind is fair, 

 and in a few hours I shall be across the channel. 



B. F. 



